


every kiss begins with k(arkat)

by asukalangley



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Meteorstuck, Retcon Timeline, they kiss what more do you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asukalangley/pseuds/asukalangley
Summary: It is just over a year into the journey when Dave is forced to confront the fact that he cares for Karkat like a timeline doomed to fail.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 10
Kudos: 166
Collections: April 2020 - Titles I'll Never Use





	every kiss begins with k(arkat)

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in an hour. happy quarantine

i.

The first kiss isn’t real.

It happens in a dark corridor of the meteor in the second month, when they’ve all gotten over their prejudices (temporarily) and formed what Dave knows in his heart is the closest thing he’ll find to friendship on a rock hurtling through fucking time and space. (Ha, it’s almost like he can’t admit that Rose is his right arm and Karkat is becoming his left, and he doesn’t know how he would be able to function without them right now.)

Dave calls out his name, and Karkat flinches, like Dave is the first person to ever say it like it isn’t an insult. It is in that cautious moment that it comes to him, completely uninvited, fleeting in vision but branding in intent. _What if I kissed him?_

What a horrible thought. Dave almost resents Karkat for it in that brief, incandescent second, even though Karkat did nothing to invite it, save for simply being himself. Really, Dave just feels guilty.

“What?” Karkat goes, faux-harshness covering the moment.

Dave clenches his hand into a gentle fist. “Nothing. Later, windbag.”

“Whatever, I hate you, go throw yourself off this meteor, etcetera etcetera.” Karkat half-heartedly waves behind him. “Goodnight, Dave.”

Watching Karkat walk away is like a small relief.

  
  


ii.

He does it again, because once the thought has entered his mind it’s difficult for something not to trigger it, like _not_ thinking about it only brings it to the surface.

God fucking damn it.

They’ll be in the middle of a conversation when Dave will think of it: of pressing Karkat’s lips to his, just to see what it would be like. They’ll watch a movie when Dave thinks of leaning in and kissing him, two normal teenagers doing normal teenager things, despite how unnormal literally everything about their lives are. Even Karkat doing something as stupid and domestic as trying to work the toaster makes him want to kiss him.

Two years, six months, and twenty-nine days to go.

iii.

Dave doesn’t know when the whole casual affection thing started (is a lie he likes to tell himself). He remembers the first moment perfectly: Vriska wants them to do drills, and Karkat sees the way Dave’s body seems to simultaneously fold in on itself and build itself up, a fortress preparing for its inevitable demise.

Karkat’s hand hovers, as if testing the waters, waiting for Dave to pull back, before Dave throws himself off that ledge and grips it like a lifeline. The whole world sharpens.

Karkat’s hand squeezes his, just once. Dave squeezes back, tentatively, and Karkat, unremarkable to most, looks at him. That small, barely there upturn of Karkat’s lips has Dave feeling like throwing his hands over his eyes to save him from how that tiny smile can light up the whole meteor, like Karkat’s smile is a star all on its own, but that would require him to let go of Karkat’s hand.

“Go kick some eyepatch-rumpus-ass.” Karkat murmurs. “And try not to die.”

Dave almost says _‘will you kiss me better if I do?_ ’. In the end, though, he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything at all.

iv.

It is just over a year into the journey when Dave is forced to confront the fact that he cares for Karkat like a timeline doomed to fail.

He thinks it’s the beginning of the end when he asks him, out of nowhere, half-hanging off of his bed as Karkat reads some soppy romance novel for the third time this cycle, “can I kiss you?”

He regrets it the second it leaves his mouth, but there is a thoughtful kind of silence coming from Karkat. Or maybe that’s Dave’s newfound idealism. Maybe it’s heavy, as crushing as the weight of his soon-to-be rejection. God, he’s only four hundred and twenty-three days, fourteen hours and nine minutes, fifty-seven seconds and twelve milliseconds in and now Karkat’s never going to talk again, and they’ll have to pass each other in the hall like two ships in the night, and God, Rose will never let him live it down – if she’s going to even talk to him, that is, because she might be so disappointed in him ruining one of the few good things in his life, and –

“Jegus, are you kidding? Okay.”

Dave sits up abruptly, stars in his eyes and head as he rights himself. “What.”

Karkat looks halfway between perturbed and pleased. “ _You_ asked.” He continues immediately. “I mean, if you were serious. If you weren’t then can we please forget this conversation ever happened, and never bring it up again? You can fuck off then right back here and continue making all your human blood go to your think tank.”

“No.” Dave says, despite his instincts telling him to say ‘if I ever opened up to you I was kidding’. “I was serious.”

Karkat still looks like he’s backing away from that ledge.

Backtracking, Dave goes, “fuck, I’m sorry. It was stupid. We’ll do that thing where we pretend it didn’t happen for $500. We’ll just be friends and–”

This time it's Karkat who says, “no.”

“What do you mean, no?”

Karkat’s expression shifts from wary to intent, his brows two thick strokes of determination. “No, because we’re not friends.” And then he leans in and kisses him.

It isn’t Dave’s first kiss (kissing your friend while she’s asleep really, really sucks) but it feels like the most important. It’s not forceful, but Dave wouldn’t call it delicate, either, just like he wouldn’t label Karkat either of the two but perhaps something in between. Despite all of Karkat’s romance reading and Dave’s single experience on the table, they don’t quite figure out how to slot together right. It’s the angle, or the way they’re still holding back, until Dave stops seeing an equation in the moment and just _kisses_ him.

He opens himself to it, feels the skin of his face melting where it’s cradled between Karkat’s hands; kisses Karkat like you would a whirlwind, a tornado, a tsunami. _I’m here_ , the kiss says, _take me_.

“Top ten anime kisses of all time.” Dave says through numb lips, and Karkat’s bark of laughter is enough to make this whole fucking trip worth it.

v.

When everything’s over, when new Gods walk the earth, Dave pulls Karkat in and kisses him soundly on the cheek. “I call dibs on turning the attic into a ball pit.”

Karkat’s smile says ‘I love you’, but his eyes say ‘if I could have gotten away with murdering you and throwing your body off that meteor, I would have’.


End file.
